Crystal Core Page 13

  Which was an oversight. She hadn’t been asked, because he knew she was busy at the moment. Along with Aunt Patricia and Uncle Tim, and Smythe of Westend. They all showed up on that list as well. Some of them were on both. No one commented on it, but it was clearly significant. Anyone finding his hand held could work out a lot about who was fighting in the war. Possibly even who was running it for their people.

  Prince Benjamin was on both as well, however, and no one in the world would think he was in on the whole thing at a high level. Which was simply true.

  The kid was just working on the inter-reality embassy project. Which was safe enough, for the time being. After all, no one was trying to stop them from entertaining people from different realities. The other side didn’t even really want them all dead. They just wanted them all to die, which was different. Really, it was all about not floating in nothingness at the end of time. If they killed people at other times, it was just them being bad or even evil.

  Not that anyone committing acts of violence had hung around enough for him to scold them for the lapse. If it came up, he’d have to keep that idea in mind.

  Tapping a glowing green circle on the left of the flat focus stone, Willum held it, his thumb in place.

  “This causes the device to record what it’s pointed at. Except, here… Watch.” He focused a bit, changing what was shown on the screen. The physical object was held in his right hand, but the magical field moved through the room. “It won’t go through walls and won’t record sounds at further than twenty feet away. So it isn’t great for eavesdropping.” He’d built that in on purpose.

  Tiera seemed more or less impressed.

  “Oh, sure. But will it take my calls for me, if I can’t answer?” She was being cute about it. As if he hadn’t thought to put that kind of thing into play. All the phones in other worlds and even Austran hand-helds did that.

  He blinked, and then got to nod. Willum wanted to feel smug, but didn’t bother. The people there were all far too good with magic to be impressed with his paltry efforts.

  “The pink rectangle. Hold it and you can make a message. If you push the purple rectangle right under that, it will answer for you and let people leave a message you can play back later.” It was harder to show, without anyone calling to demonstrate the whole thing but Tor actually clapped him on the shoulder.

  “That’s nice work! Very high end. Would it be all right for me to copy some of these features?” There was a strange expression on the tall man’s pretty face.

  Since he expected Willum to say no. Possibly reminding him about their rocky relationship. Which, to Tor, actually made sense.

  Willum didn’t care that much about things like that now, however. He was even starting to let go of the idea that the man was bad, inside. It was too clear he never was. Willum was worse, day to day. Most people were. Even the nice ones.

  “Sure. I won’t be able to make more for a while. I have some I can pass out, but it’s a limited supply. If you want to make them for Harmony and Mars? We need to have a way for people here to get them as well. Rent them for a silver a month or something like that?” The Noram sales price would be several hundred gold. Minimum.

  Really, it would be a lot more than that, for one of his versions of the device. Focusing, he called for the correct floating case, which was in his room. There were several of them in there, but the rest were actually all earmarked already. Mainly for the IPB.

  As the case floated toward them, Tiera smirked and crossed her arms.

  “That’s… Of course. I can see it now that it’s been done. Can anyone use the new cases?”

  Taman blew her cheeks out, and then nodded.

  “It’s just your recall field, from the wagons? Not a bad use of it. I should probably get Timon to make some changes in me as well. Not sleeping just frees up so much time.” She didn’t seem disgruntled about it.

  Willum shook his head.

  “It does, but we can’t use it forever, I don’t think. I’m pretty certain that doing it for more than a year or so will drive anyone trying it insane. Maybe longer than that, but not forever. As it is, I need to get that taken out, or at least have a switch put on it, so I can sleep on demand.”

  Tor looked around, then nodded. Covertly, as he leaned in and whispered gently.

  “Which means Dare needs that as well. Fast. I didn’t really know it was having that kind of an effect. Or, what is the effect? He seems fine, more or less.”

  “Problems concentrating, mainly. Losing the thread of things, to be more exact. I can focus just fine, but I’ve been drifting, hitting on different ideas, other than what I had planned to begin with. I think it’s related. We should check and see if that’s the same for Dareg.”

  While he spoke, he got out eight of the communications devices and handed them to Tiera. Her food units were probably worth ten times that, if not more, but she just took them, holding them in her hand, since they were too big to put around her neck.

  That’s what he did with the food units she’d passed to him.

  Tor got one as well.

  “To make those copies from? Here, Aunt Tiera… I have a box you can use for that. Let me…” He had to dig for a bit, but did produce the thing, which she made look like a small red box that glowed a bit. It had carvings on the outside, and floated away from her, to rest on the ceiling, staying where it was on its own.

  She nodded at him, her chin barely moving.

  “Decent. Can you build that into a master unit, so that it will control ships?”

  That got him to shake his head.

  “No? I mean, I don’t know how to make ships yet. Once I do… Then probably. I can try at least. That won’t be for… Oh, a while. Aunt Taman mentioned learning how to do that in this next year of work for me. I think, anyway.” After all, there was a real reason to assume that he would either be done with the whole spying thing by then, or would be so busy doing it that learning might not have been the real plan.

  The idea wasn’t a horrible one, he didn’t think. Not that Willum understood everything involved in moving ships in a dock. At the spaceport in Soam the few ships they’d ever had in while he’d been there had just been controlled by their pilots. Moving them around like they were large boxes would probably be useful, if space was at a premium. It was just such an odd idea.

  Tiera hit him on the arm. Gently, though it wasn’t really companionable in nature. More, pushy, really.

  “Good. If you can’t get to it sooner. Now, you have a special training facility? How do we get kids from Harmony into your program? You’re paying for it all, right?” She grinned, but didn’t make it into teasing. Not really.

  No, it was far more controlling than that.

  Instead of arguing with her, pointing out that it was for the port children first, Willum just looked at her, and made his face slowly take on a wry smile. It was lopsided and a bit impertinent, given the woman was a Queen for her day job.

  “I want instructors. Good ones with a variety of high level skills. If you can get volunteers for that, I can pay them. That will be enough to get the best students you present in. I mean, if they pass the tests.” Otherwise they might only put the slow and dull in with them, just to make things harder. Then again, that might work, if they were willing to become something new and better.

  He closed one eye. Thinking hard, for a moment. It felt awkward, but he didn’t let that stop him.

  “Right. If they’re willing to have magic used on them to make changes happen, we can take any child. We don’t have to select only the most intelligent to start with. In that case… Well, them being willing is the important part. The ones that want to be there most? I don’t know how to test for that.”

  Those words got her to narrow her eyes, but then nod. Her face, pretty and about the same color of light tan as Tim Bakers, seemed slightly troubled over the whole idea. Her skin was almost perfectly smooth and blemish free. From the feeling coming off of her, she wasn’t using a make-up
amulet even. It was just her normal, real, face.

  “It’s harder to get people to do that than you might think. Only about ten percent are even willing to really try it. Most of those won’t do much at all that way. Then again, if they aren’t willing to risk anything, they aren’t going to be worth your time. I’ll put up a notice. For the instructors? You have a good program going, it looks like. What else are you going to add in to it?”

  She was pushing him on purpose. Probably knowing that he wouldn’t be able to oversee things himself at all. Rather than let it get to him, he thought, focusing on what might be needed. Or even useful, both to the children and everyone else, at the same time.

  “Magic, crafts… Wood working and doing that in focus stone… I think I might try to put forward a program to teach them how to fly ships. After all, it’s at the space port. I bet Alice Orange might want in on this kind of thing. Possible future recruits and all that.” She might not, Willum knew. It sounded better not to mention that part out loud.

  Space fleet didn’t really have a lot of problems getting good people to sign up already, he didn’t think. They also didn’t need people that were trained from early childhood to perform the tasks they required for their day to day operations.

  Taman looked around and shook her head. Then she turned to her brother, Tor and glared a bit.

  “No. Putting him to doing that tomorrow won’t work. He’s on holiday. Don’t claim you forgot, either. It’s even fair. In the last six months he hasn’t had real time off at all. I mean, nearly constant work, twenty-four hours a day. Giving him a month now is practically a joke. It’s all we can afford for the time being. Just to be fair to him he should be getting two years off, minimum.”

  The tall man actually blushed.

  “Right. No one will be harmed overly if we take more than a few weeks to get this together. Sorry there, Willum.” Large hands were spread, palms up. Trying to make the very dangerous man seem harmless.

  It just served to remind Will that the man had planned to kill him, the first time they’d met. Which was probably about right, given that the only versions of him that had ever shown up at that point had been on the enemy side of things. Worse, they’d both tried to murder people. It was hard to really blame Tor and Dareg now. Not with all he knew about the bigger problems they had.

  Which might not be impossibly large, after all.

  It was a bit of a relief, having heard that. Now it just had to turn out to be true.

  So, he shrugged.

  “Yes. I’ll be off to the IPB world with Cindy.” She was across the room, but managed to turn and wave at the sound of her name. Given her powers, that meant she’d understand what he was talking about in short order, if she didn’t already. The woman was truly amazing that way. In other ways as well.

  A lot of the IPB people were, really. They were all heroes, after all. Most of them at least.

  Elsa left without talking to him again, changing shape as she got to the door. Into what, wasn’t totally clear. She stretched upward a bit and her clothing changed color and shape, fading to look a bit like blue jeans and a t-shirt. Not that he got a good look at her doing it. She was around the corner too fast for that. Headed toward the transfer hut, he didn’t doubt.

  She could use it to move between worlds, just like he could.

  After that, being the host, he made small talk. Being kept out of any conversations about what to actually do with the information that he’d found out. Which wasn’t even that, he knew. Not really. The enemy agent coming and telling them all about things was hardly him proving his work.

  At least he had that book to show for his efforts. It felt, for a moment, like that was about it. The rest of his time had been wasted, more or less. As far as his real job went. There had been a little bit of data collected by him, in his passing of messages, just not enough to make it worth having done at all. No battles had been stopped by him, for instance. Not that he knew of.

  As people trickled out, or found rooms for themselves in the back of the building, Cindy walked up to him. They weren’t alone in the room, but only a small handful remained, mainly talking about finding a place to sleep. The Ysidril and IPB people had all gone back home, about an hour before. Cindy was headed back as well, but probably wanted him to take her in, the next morning.

  Which made sense.

  The cute blonde smiled at him and nodded.

  “No doubt. I mean, what’s the point of having a boyfriend if I can’t spend the night every now and then, right?” She took his arm, the left one, since his right hand had a drink cup in it. That was half full, of wine. A deep red, from the look and scent coming off of the crystal goblet. It had been left sitting on the floor, by a chair. It wasn’t the only drink that had that going on in the room.

  His new girlfriend gave his hand a small squeeze.

  “As for you not having gotten anything, from your work… That isn’t the case. You just don’t have a need to know about what was found. It sucks that it has to be done that way, but I get it. You’re at more risk than anyone else in this. Even the other targeted people are safer, over all. Information wise. They might die, but no one is going to torture information from them. Which is why we need to get out of here, as soon as it’s polite to do so.” She winked at him then, leaning in toward him a little. “Not that I care about that last bit. Being polite? I’m pretty much caught up here though, so we can leave as soon as you’re ready.”

  From the feeling coming off of her, the woman was subtly telling him that she wanted to leave. Right then. Which wasn’t really going to happen. After all, he had to get gold around for the children and set up the food units for them. There was more than that. A list of things to do ran through his head, most of it being about working out how to push the enemy so far away that everyone he knew, in all the worlds of his route, would be more or less safe from them. Probably not perfectly, but no one could guarantee that.

  No more than a count could stop random brigands from robbing people on the road. The thing there was that crime could be driven down to a low enough rate that no one really had to worry about it, day to day.

  Cindy leaned into him a bit. It was affectionate, which was different, really. Then, before they hadn’t been dating, just having sex. Even that had been only one time. Months back, to his perspective.

  “Sure, but it’s only been about two weeks ago for me. Most of it taken up with work, so I can’t really blame you for not coming to see me that often. Now, I need a bed. We do. At least for a while. I’ll help you clean up first. Come on.” She hurried, as if getting to sleep was rather important to her.

  Even Willum understood that wasn’t her point.

  She had to sleep though, which meant they just cuddled for a bit before she drifted off. After doing some things that would have required her to get married to him, in some realities. Then he got up and finished tidying the place up, which didn’t take long at all. It was magical and most of what was left around was food that people had been snacking on as they chatted, into the night. Which meant that there was little for him to do, as everyone else found rest.

  So, even if he was on a break, he went to his room, quietly, since there was a sleeping Cin in the bed and got his old pain stone. The one that his Aunt Taman had made for him to help him practice focusing. He either got it right, or the device was going to hurt him. Even now that he didn’t feel much pain at all it still worked. It was magical, so bypassed that kind of thing. Really well. He knew that one from hard experience.

  Sitting in the front room, on the floor, near the back-right hand side of the room he made his mind into a single point. The ground was like stone under him, the field there made to seem like the walls, but with smaller stones. They were perfectly flat on the top, if not regular in size.

  Holding the rock in his right hand, he closed his eyes, and put everything he had into holding his attention directly on what he was doing. On the stone in his hand. There was no real pain, since the threat
of it kept his mind from floating around too much. Which was the real power of using pain for things like that. It didn’t push him to do things he couldn’t. It just made trying really hard worthwhile for him. If anyone tried to torture him, or another person, into doing things that couldn’t be done, then it would fail.

  The trick there was just how lazy most people were, most of the time.

  Willum was up and preparing food for the earlier risers at about daybreak. It was late enough in the year to mean that didn’t happen until nearly seven in the morning. Most of the people weren’t really going to be up and around until later in the day. The only real exception to that were Laurie and Douglas Baker. They’d gotten up with the birds, and that meant the kids in their care were up and around as well. Scrubbed and tidy already.

  That got him to fake a clap. A single thing that wasn’t that sharp sounding, since he didn’t want to scare the younger people there.

  “Food then. What would you like for breakfast?” He was willing to take orders, but Tamu walked in, coming from the front of the space. She looked the same as the evening before, being dressed in identical clothing. Which probably meant that she didn’t have to sleep either.

  “I normally feed them plain oats and milk, for the first meal.” She looked slightly embarrassed by that, as if it weren’t a completely serviceable thing for children to be used to having in the morning. That and toasted bread were pretty much what he’d been raised on that way.

  Douglas smiled and nodded, looking too young to be in charge of that many kids. It wasn’t the truth, the man being in his fifties or even sixties.

  “That’s a sound plan, Tamu. We should keep the festival foods for special occasions. Otherwise they won’t be a treat when we get them.”

  That decided, accompanied by a small groan from a few of the kids, since sweets were fun, Will moved off to the large kitchen space, in order to start making the food for the kids. Instead of waiting at the table to be served, as was normal, they all came along with him. Then, at the urging of Laurie, his grandmother as unlikely as it seemed, they formed a single line and waited. Patiently.